So who’s the real target?

| 10:00 am EDT August 11, 2022
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After the DOJ seized House Republican Scott Perry’s cellphone on Tuesday in relation to its criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s fake elector plot, the Feds then turned around and delivered subpoenas to multiple Republican members of the Pennsylvania state legislature on Wednesday. Some of those state legislators told the media that the DOJ had informed them that they were merely considered witnesses and not criminal targets. It raised questions about just who was being targeted. Now Perry is also claiming that the DOJ told him that he’s not a criminal target.

It’s possible that these folks are lying, and that the DOJ never said any such thing to them. But what if they are telling the truth? Why not criminally charge all these folks? After all, they each played some role in Trump’s attempt at overthrowing the election – and the DOJ clearly wants to use them as material witnesses to take someone else down.

Keep in mind that in investigations into organized criminal plots, the DOJ likes to flip people upward in order to take down the biggest fish. Perhaps, instead of trying to indict these various legislators with election fraud (only for them to turn around and make reasonable doubt arguments at trial that the President of the United States told them to do it) the DOJ has simply decided to pressure them into testifying against bigger fish by letting them know they’ll go free if they cooperate as witnesses.

But that would mean they’re testifying against someone in this criminal investigation. And free passes generally only get handed out to people who can help take down more important people. We know that former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark and Trump election attorney John Eastman are caught up in this probe, given that the DOJ seized their phones as well. It’s interesting that Clark and Eastman haven’t bothered announcing to the media that they’ve been told they’re not targets.

But really, this all keeps pointing back to the real target of this DOJ criminal investigation being Donald Trump. Given that Trump criminally conspired with Eastman and Clark to commit these election crimes, it would be just about impossible for Eastman and Clark, but not Trump, to be targets.

If one had to guess based on the limited information that’s surfaced, it feels like perhaps the DOJ is offering to let Scott Perry off the hook if he gives up Eastman, Clark, and Trump, and that the DOJ intends to indict Eastman and Clark but offer them some leniency if they cooperate against Trump. But that’s just a guess. No one outside the DOJ itself can know for sure what the DOJ is doing, because from the outside we’re only seeing perhaps 5% of what all the DOJ is really doing.

But it’s worth underscoring that if the Pennsylvania state legislators aren’t the target, and even Rep. Scott Perry isn’t the target, and the DOJ is merely using them all as material witnesses to target somebody else, then Donald Trump kind of has to be that target, doesn’t he? Or they could all be targets, and they’re just lying about having been told they’re not.